Global Financial Crisis. The US Federal Reserve (FED) cuts the interest rate to an unprecedented level: zero. It’s uncharted territory. The monetary policy transmission belt has broken. Money is no longer flowing to businesses and citizens. Washington therefore resorts to another experiment: quantitative easing, printing $1 trillion to flood the United States and the entire world with easy credit. Recovery will be seen within a few months, but only for the US and Chinese economies. By printing dollars, America has pulled itself and, to some extent, others out of the crisis, and has even strengthened the dollar’s role internationally. The FED has, in fact, acted as the world’s central bank, printing a total of $4.5 trillion in several rounds, which has also reached the rest of the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Ten years later, the dollar is the reference currency for countries representing 70% of global GDP, up from 60% in 2008.
